← Josh Pate's College Football Show
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Josh Pate
This is an I heart podcast.
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Bradley
Guaranteed human. They tell me I have five senses. I feel like I have 17. On a night like tonight where we are jam packed. We are high atop a very on guard downtown Nashville, Tennessee. Sunday, March 15th, the year of our Lord 2026. We're going to do a full on college football show, but then also we have severe weather bearing down on us. I got to get us out of here in a decent amount of time because I got to make sure Bradley can get home. I don't want him stuck on the roads in that kind of weather. And so my two passions just colliding here tonight. And then FanDuel hits us up and says, guess what? Win totals for the season are out as well. What, for a few teams? No, for the whole country. So we're going to talk about that tonight. I have several thoughts. I'm giving you liens. I'm not just going to share the news. Okay. We're not just, we're not just reporting tonight. We're actually going to take a stand, which I'm accused of not doing in the spring. I'm going to take a stand softly on a lot of these teams. I've got spring intel all over the place. We're going to tell the truth about Dan Lanning tonight. We did not give him a heads up. It's coming so he'll learn the truth about himself right along with the rest of us. And I got a question about teams on the clock which was interesting because you could go the route of this team needs to win or the head coach is going to get fired. But you can also go the route of hey, this team's coach is not going to get fired. But if not now, then when? You know Clemson last year, Penn State last year, although it turns out the coach did get fired there. So we got a whole lot to get to. We're jam packed. They're watching us in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Dallas, Texas, Gary, Indiana, Flora, Mississippi. People. It's never been more important that you subscribe to the channel. Well, actually you can do it anytime you want. But just check and make sure we're doing that thing right now again where we're getting a lot of feedback from people. When I say this on the show and the feedback sounds like this, hey, you always say subscribe to the channel. And I never do it because I thought I was and then I checked and I wasn't subscribed. So just check and make sure you are because it's free so it doesn't really change Anything for you, but it helps us. So speaker series starts this week. Can't tell you where we're going yet, but we got two big stops this week and we will go all over the place for the rest of spring because what else are we going to do? Sit around here? All right, let's dive in. Got a lot of spring camps opening up. Nebraska is going to wrap their spring practice and have a game before some of these places have even begun spring practice. So it's weird. Not all the calendars just perfectly overlap, but for the teams that have begun spring practice, we got our ear to the ground. Ohio State has begun spring practice. You know they're losing Caden McDonald. They're losing a lot defensively. But at Ohio State, sometimes you don't have to have heard the names to just blindly assume they're going to be pretty good. But in Ohio State's case, like Edric Houston, yes, we expect him, they expect him to backfill and be a big time role player there. But here's what's interesting. They got a couple of guys from Alabama in the transfer portal. James Smith was one of them. And I don't know about you, if you're an Ohio State fan, you've probably heard this, but if you listen more and more from around there, it sounds like they're really excited about James Smith. And for that matter, if you look at the edge position, Kenyatta Jackson at the edge position, he's back. He's going to be a big time playmaker for him. But then what's another name you hear? Quay Russo, another Alabama transfer. So they got that pair of guys from Alabama that at least in the early portion of spring ball look to be checking all the boxes they need them to check. Now Zion Grady is probably a guy who they have in house there that has a higher overall upside, but he's a much younger guy. Legend Bay continues to be a name that we hear that Ryan Day himself has mentioned a lot. Kind of comparing him to Curtis Samuel from back in the day. Just having that hybrid potential. Feel like you could play him in 37 different roles offensively and he is going to be a really good player for them, I think for a long time. Okay, let's go down the road a pretty good ways to Tallahassee, Florida. Florida State's got to get it done this year. But before I mention what they've got to do this year, I'm going to read you some stats from last year because this is mind blowing. Pretend like you didn't know I was Talking about Florida State. Pretend I just took the paper, popped it as we do and I said, guess this team, Jesse. Guess a team that was sixth offensively in yards per game last year and they were 28th defensively in yards per game allowed last year. Who would that be? That would be your 5 and 7 Florida State Seminoles because they were 105th in turnover margin. I watched them last year. I've got all the stat profiles and all the papers in front of me. But producer Jesse threw that little fastball under the chin today and I couldn't believe it and I made him double check it. Did we triple check that? We did. We triple checked it even. So yeah, it's true. There's a little bit of an underrated quarterback battle happening at Florida State. Underrated because I think people are paying attention to more high profile battles out there. But Ashton Daniels and Kevin Sperry are battling it out there. Now I think if FanDuel were to put odds out, and we haven't gotten to that point in spring ball yet, but one of these days maybe FanDuel puts odds out on quarterback battles and Ashton Daniels would probably be a solid favorite to win the job. But it is a legitimate battle. It's not a cosmetic quarterback battle as we sometimes have in spring ball. But behind that. Okay, let's get beyond that. Let's say Ashton Daniels does win the job. Whoms does he throw in the ball to? What's easy, Deuce Robinson. Guy had over 1,000 yards last year. Yes he did. Yes he did. So let me rephrase the question. Beyond Deuce Robinson, who's he throwing the ball to? Cause stats and info. Second paper Pop of spring intel has informed me that while Deuce Robinson did put up just over a thousand yards receiving last year, wide receiver 2, 3 and 4 combined for less yards than Deuce Robinson had. Wide receiver 2, 3 and 4 for Florida State put up 1070. Javan Boggs. That's a name we've circled. That's a name a lot of folks close to the Florida State program have circled and told us to watch out for. They're replacing an entire offensive line here. They are leaning pretty heavily on the portal to do that. And so when, when you got that kind of dynamic, you don't know. I am convinced in a lot of cases that the coaching staffs themselves can't even know. How would you know? How would you know that as Meemaw so articulately said back in the day is why God invented spring football. Now we go all the way. We hop on the jet, we go out, we probably land in Laredo to refill and refuel, and then we get back up in the air, we go all the way to Los Angeles and we talk about usc. I got great news for everyone. If you're a USC fan, I've got great news for you. If you're a USC hater, I've got great news for you. We have been told this team will look better physically than any team they've had since Pete Carroll was there. That's good news if you're a Southern Cal fan for obvious reasons. It's good news if you're a hater too, because you don't think there's anything under the hood at usc. You think it's all cosmetic. You think that they always have good looking athletes. You think that they can win a competition getting off the bus. They look great on magazine covers, but when it comes time to get the job done, Lincoln Riley's going to choke every time. That's what a USC hater would sound like. I know, because we have a lot of them in our audience. Well, it feels like they're seeing the effect at Southern California of that strength and conditioning overhaul they did a little over a year ago. And we were told to watch out for that at the time. A lot of folks around USC said we are making several changes here. One of them that won't be talked about so much outside of our world is strength and conditioning. And they did. And look, we've been given a pretty good heads up from several different people. You just watch a year from now. Well, it's a year from then and we're seeing it. I'm okay. So now spring football starts and I've got on top of that the number one recruiting class in the country on campus. Several of those true freshmen seem like they're going to be contributors. I'll give you one right now. Luke Waffle, five star edge player, 65265, extremely long, extremely versatile. I think you'll see him on the field this year. My concern, interestingly enough with Southern California is at the wide receiver position. And I have maintained, and I still maintain that if my biggest concern about a USC team outside of line of scrimmage. But line of scrimmage is getting figured out and that's kind of a concern for everyone this time of year. But if my biggest concern about USC is either quarterback, which is not this year, or receiver, which it is, and the head coach is Lincoln Riley, I'm going to at the very least count on him to fill those buckets with with enough to get the job done. So. So they got a kid named Terrell Anderson from NC State. He's a transfer receiver. He looks like a guy who I'm going to be able to count on. But also, Trent Mosley is a true freshman. I know it's halfway through spring ball. I'd be very surprised if he wasn't a big time role player in the slot position specifically for them. And Caden Dixon, Wyatt, that's another freshman. Those are just two names that have emerged pretty early in USC camp out there. So let's keep an eye on that. But just, I'm going to go back to what I said because right now it's March 15th, so we got a long way to go until they open up against whoever it is. They open up against San Jose State in week zero. This week zero game. Yeah. I'm telling you, they're going to look different. That's all. I'm telling you. They're just going to look different. Will they play different? I don't know. We got a little ways to figure that out. Clemson, we, man, we're going all across the country. Clemson. So interesting times here. Dabo's obviously still there, but as you may or may not remember, Garrett Riley a few years back was a big time addition. Well, we were all excited about it. I was excited about it. Dabo finally has learned and going outside the program for a big time OC hire. Riley was at tcu, I think he was. And so he went and he got Garrett Riley as his offensive coordinator. That was going to be a big deal and it really just never clicked the way that I thought it would. So Garrett Riley's gone and they brought in Chad Morris. Okay. And that was probably where the story was going to end until week one, until Dabo got asked about it the other day and I got a quote for you. It's on the screen right now if you're listening. On podcast, this was Dabo Swinney speaking about his departing coordinator and incoming coordinator. He said, quote, it was fun to learn something different and all that, but it's like being back in America after living in Spain for three years. I'm back to living in Pelham, Alabama, unquote. So there's that. Chris Fazina's there. Chris Fazina finally going to be the starting quarterback at Clemson. I feel like I've been looking forward to the Chris Fizzina era for, oh, the better part of a decade or so. So that's finally here. He's big dude now. 6, 4, 2, 10. Jesse. Remember, we saw him at Elite 11 way back in the day, way a long time ago. And Chad Morris is coming in there. Now. Here's the thing. Here's what we're hearing out of Clemson right now. It's spring ball you're installing what for Dabo is not a new offense, but for the kids on that roster is a new offense. And there's a lot more tempo as a piece, a foundational piece of this offense. So they're kind of struggling with that. And then also you got a bunch of new receivers, so they're kind of just got new players all over the place. So they're kind of struggling with that as well. Courtney Kelly is a transfer defensive tackle and he looks to be out for a little while now. I don't know how long it's going to be, but that's a pretty big hit for them. But I will say this. One of the encouraging things is that you keep on hearing from a couple of different people now is when Tom Allen came in there and took over as DC last year, they went through the year. One of his quick observations was we're not fast enough in our secondary. That's really what we got to do. And they went and targeted specifically speed in the secondary and they brought in some guys there. Yeah, I know that's a sentence that we're not used to saying what Clemson did in the portal, but they did go get guys in the portal. Jesse, what would you say? Three? Probably three guys. Maybe three or four in the secondary that are starters will be portal guys. We asked him to consider it, him being Dabo. He has considered it. Let's see if it pays off. And lastly at Nebraska, Nebraska, last year at this time, we were all looking forward to the rule year three effect. And also he had gotten Dana Holgerson as coordinator and we had Dylan Raiola returning starter at quarterback. This was going to be the year. They were 68th passing yards per game. They were 80th in rushing yards per game. And Dylan Raiola has subsequently departed Lincoln, Nebraska. And as you'll notice, not a whole lot of wailing, not a whole lot of gnashing of teeth. Just kind of a. All right, we tried it out. It didn't work. Good luck to you at Oregon. Good luck to us with Kenny Minchi. Oh, wait, Kenny Minchie just said bye. He is not coming here. He's going to Kentucky. What are we going to do? We're going to go to unlv. We're going to get Anthony Calandria. Now I have a sneaking suspicion this is going to work out. It's just one of those college football stories. It's kind of like when last year with Austin Simmons going down at Ole Miss and then in comes this backup quarterback from Ferris State that no one's heard of. And then all of a sudden you're in the playoffs and that's just like a college football story. And you see versions of that every year, not always to that extreme, but there's always this sort of man who could have seen this coming. Whomstood have seen this coming. I think maybe this year's whomstead have seen this coming special is Anthony Calandria. The quarterback that Nebraska didn't want to have to worry about going to get out of desperation. Ends up being the perfect fit for that offense. Like I am very convinced that they will improve their offensive numbers this year specifically cause of what that kid can do off script doubly specifically because of what he can do in the run game. And they got a UCLA transfer at wide receiver, Quasi Gilmer and at linebacker, Owen Chambliss. Those are two names. That's a linebacker from San Diego State, by the way. Those are two names that are standing out for Nebraska. Starting to get that itch, Jesse. The Nebraska itch. We've gotten it the last two years. We've taken over. They've. They've missed by half a game each time. But that just means keep betting it and eventually it will hit. And I got a long time to talk myself into nine or ten wins for Nebraska. Long time, lot of Runway. Okay. I can't even see the end of the Runway. That's how much Runway we have right now. Spring intel. It's a beautiful time of year. Nebraska's spring game is the 28th, right? March 28th. And who like there are teams that haven't started spring ball. Oregon will not have started. When does Oregon start spring ball? Jesse's Googling. Jesse, you don't have all the spring dates memorized. Why are you here? What are you even doing? It's distracting. Yeah. So Matt Rule swears by this. Now Matt Rule says I'm never going back to a late spring. Go ahead. UCLA starts April 2nd. Nebraska wraps spring ball March 28th. The cold weather team wraps spring football before the warm weather team begins spring football. Okay. To each his and her own, I guess. Let's move on. What a text we got the other day. I'm just minding my own business. As you do this time of year. Friday, and I get a text from fanduel Mike. And fanduel Mike says the following. Win totals are out. Okay, okay. And I thought he meant a few teams, because, remember, they dropped Arkansas on us and there were, like, three teams that had win totals out for a while. So I thought he meant a new batch of teams had been released. Oh, no. Fanduel Mike, when he texted me that it might as well have been in all caps, all the teams are out. All of the P4s, at least that I can tell, are out. It may be everybody that's out. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go by conference here. I'm not going to do them all tonight. I think we're going to save some of this for Thursday, you know, because it is March, so the season's still quite a ways away. We don't have to just, like, empty the entire bucket tonight. Bradley, here's a good endpoint for you. SEC win totals are out at fanduel. This right now makes it no longer hypothetical. If you think that Ryan Silverfield is going to come in and turn around Arkansas overnight, you don't just have to say it. You can go to FanDuel right now because Arkansas over under is at four and a half, and you can just sledgehammer that over repeatedly, which you can legally do in Arkansas now, by the way. So right now, you can see on the screen, or if you're listening on podcast, just go to fanduel. You can see all the team totals. Even if you don't intend on betting it. That's where you can find all of this information. Here's what stood out to me. Look at that screen. That right there is further confirmation about my theory that the SEC has become more like the Big 12 than the Big 12 was for a long time. For a long time, this was the Big 12, where you have 13 teams currently on this board with an over under win total between six and a half and nine and a half. No team is higher than nine and a half. All but three teams in the league are between six and a half and nine a half. That was the Big 12. It was so compressed, and there's no real tip of the iceberg. It's just like a whole bunch of teams compressed into this one group. Meanwhile, in the Big 12, Texas tech's kind of pulled away a little bit, so let's dive in here. I'm going to give you some liens. These are very, very tentative liens. And I reserve the Right. To change my mind on these, LSU stands out to me immediately. So full disclosure. On Friday when FanDuel released these numbers, LSU opened at eight and a half. Then they shot up to nine and a half. Now the Juice is moving there. These aren't all even juice right now. I lean a little bit under if you're throwing nine and a half at me. If LSU's got to go ten and two for this over to hit, I'm leaning more towards nine and three being more realistic. It assumes so much about these transfers working out, about Lane Kiffin working out in year one and they could even start hot in this under. Still hit because they end with Alabama, Tennessee at Texas at Arkansas. So Bradley, do me a favor. If you got LSU schedule, there it is right now, okay? They got Clemson at home. They're going to be a double digit favorite against Clemson in week one. Let's just assume for a second glass mostly full with lsu. Let's go Clemson win, Louisiana Tech win. Let's take them to Oxford and win. And Texas A and M comes in there. There's a world where they start five and oh, but it still gets really tough down the stretch there. But here's another thing that could happen. Okay, let's still go Clemson and Louisiana Tech as two wins to start the year. So LSU is 2, 0. You're telling me you couldn't see a world where they go 02 the next two weeks. Like those are going to be tough games at Ole Miss and Texas A and M back to back. So they could go two and two there either way. You know you got that March in November where you got Bama, Texas at Tennessee at Arkansas, 9 and 3 in many scenarios could have LSU as a fringe playoff team. So if I hit an under and LSU can still go 9 and 3, I would lean under if the total is 9 and a half right now I am going to go another under here. I don't get this movement on South Carolina. So South Carolina, it's another, another team. They opened at five and a half, then South Carolina jumped to six and a half and I got to lean under. If you're throwing six and a half at me with South Carolina, I don't really get the movement. So there are two layup games. As you can see, weeks one and two should be layups. Kent State and Towson. So we're, we're pretty much starting two and oh there or else the under is clearly going to hit. So let's say two and oh, then there are three games. Mississippi State Kentucky and Arkansas that are just elsewhere on this schedule, they could go three and oh, they could go one and two there. Let's go two and one in those games. So we've already got four wins there. You've still got to find me three more wins. And the other teams on their schedule, guys are like at Alabama, at Florida, Tennessee at OU, Texas A& M, Georgia at Clemson and you got to find me three wins in there. I don't know. I don't. I think that five and a half number was right. If you're going to try and sell me on six and six, okay, I think I got to have a little bit too much go right to be banking on 7 and 5 for South Carolina. So I would lean, lean under right now at six and a half. Now there's a six and a half out there that I don't think looks right. And that's Oklahoma. So Oklahoma's coming off a playoff visit, a playoff appearance. Oklahoma opened at six and a half. It's just too low. The other teams with totals at six and a half in the sec, South Carolina, Missouri, Auburn, Vanderbilt and then Oklahoma. One of those rosters is just not like the other rosters. Oklahoma as of an hour ago was six and a half. And you're telling me since we researched, they moved up to seven and a half. Why did you have to tell me? No one would have known. No one would have know. But we're live, pal. Well, I would like to confirm that I was right. Oklahoma six and a half was too low. I contributed to this because I bet Oklahoma over six and a half earlier today. Let me tell you why I did. It's kind of the same deal as last year. They opened at six and a half last year. I bet the over they went 10 and 2 in the regular season and they did that with Mattier hurt. And then when he came back it was kind of like a sputtering version of their offense. And it didn't help that they couldn't run the ball to save their lives. And yet they still went 10 and 2. Why? Because they could play elite defense. So I'm going to count on the floor defensively for Oklahoma to be pretty good to really good. So let's say top 20 defense this year. I'll even bake in that they fall off a little bit. But I get mater back. I got a really good receiver room. I'm just going to trust that they can do this year what Georgia did last year, which is improve fairly significantly running the ball. And you're telling me. Well, as of an hour ago, 7 and 5 would have won here. Yeah. Look, if I were really pressed on this, there may still be value on the over at seven and a half, but I didn't bet that. I want to be very clear. I bet six and a half. So good for us for being ahead of the curve there by an hour. I've got another over. Jesse, what's Georgia at? Georgia still at what we had him at an hour ago. We need to tell FanDuel to freeze numbers for us because that's how markets work. We just freeze them at our leisure. Yeah. Georgia's at nine and a half. This number's too low. Georgia over at nine and a half. I've locked this in already. There are four other teams with a win total of eight and a half or higher in the sec. Georgia faces one of those teams and that is Alabama. There's no Texas, there's no lsu. There's no Texas A and M on this schedule. They get the Florida game in Atlanta this year because Jacksonville is under construction. The roster continuity, the staff continuity, it's Georgia. Just that should be its own bullet point. And also think about how good they were in one possession games last year. So I'm going to count on Georgia to give me an over at nine and a half. And then I was looking at Ole Miss. So there were some. Some slight leans I had that I wasn't really ready to just do a part of the segment on. I have a little bit of an Ole Miss investment strategy right now. So Ole Miss got released at seven and a half over, under seven and a half wins. I think that there is a little element of if when the final Pete Nakos headline comes, Trinidad Chambliss, all the court cases are settled. He's playing this year. I think there may be enough juice in the market, kind of pun intended to bump this up to eight and a half. So I've already taken a little bit of Ole Miss over at seven and a half. I think there could be a little middle opportunity here to hit that under once it gets to eight and a half because eight and four seems reasonable for Ole Miss this year. So I looked at that. Alabama is kind of attractive at over eight and a half. And my simple thinking there, although I'm not putting anything on it right now, my simple thinking there was what are the three toughest games? Georgia's one of them. Let's say at LSU is another one. And what Texas A and M probably the third one. They could lose all three of them. So hit the over. As long as you go beat Tennessee, don't get upset. Florida State's on the schedule. We know that's no gimme. I would, I would lean over with Alabama and what kind of action is Texas going to get? So Texas was at nine and a half, but if you really feel like Texas is going to be elite this year, it doesn't matter how hard their schedule is, it just doesn't matter. They got Ohio State in week two. If Texas is elite this year, they'll beat Ohio State. It'll kind of make the game look like it looked in Columbus last year, but turn the hourglass upside down. They'll go to Tennessee and win. They'll beat Oklahoma and Dallas. They'll be like an 11 and 1 team. If Texas is elite this year, that's what they'll look like. That's what they'll have the capability to do. Now, I didn't put anything on it but those win totals in the sec. There's nobody with a double digit win total right now. We're going to continue this momentarily. I did want to quickly tell you, we've been mentioning, we've been mentioning the Pate State store which is open earlier today. Guy hit me up. He had purchased one of the Pate State Little Freights T shirts. Some say our child wear is better than our adult wear. Those aren't official terms. Like there's no tab that says child wear. I don't think he got a chalice of Supremacy out of it. I was feeling very generous. So Prez is going to be shipping him a Chalice of supremacy probably tomorrow. A little late to get something in the mail today, but anyway, Whether you are 2 years old or 92 years old, there is something in the Pate State store for you. Patestatematerial.com There you see some examples over my shoulder right now as we speak.
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Josh Pate
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Bradley
Appreciate you guys watching live, by the way, if you are or if you're listening to the replay, it makes no difference. Just make sure you subscribe to the channel. It wasn't just SEC win totals that were released. Big Ten win totals are posted now. This is where it gets a little bit fascinating because the big story is in the Big Ten has been that there's been like a tier one and then there's pretty big separation and then there's like a sandbag on the bottom of the league and there's just a lot of gross at the bottom of the Big Ten. If this graphic on our screen right now is to be believed, that continues this year because there are two teams, Indiana and Oregon, that both have over under win totals of ten and a half. As for teams that have totals of five and a half or lower, the Big Ten has seven of them. The SEC by comparison has three. So that's kind of how the perception of the sport is right now. The top of the SEC doesn't quite match the top of the Big Ten, but the bottom of the Big Ten way worse than the bottom of the sec. You just Rutgers, Maryland, ucla, Northwestern, Minnesota, those teams all under six and a half. Then you got Wisconsin, Nebraska at six and a half. But the top three makes sense. Like I'm not even really going to talk a whole lot about Indiana, Oregon and Ohio State. Ohio State's total is nine and a half because their schedule is tougher this year. Now we do have it on pretty good authority that if Oregon and or Indiana had Ohio State schedule, they would also have totals of nine and a half. So there's a. Obviously there's a huge schedule piece that gets baked into this, but the first team I want to talk to you about is not Ohio State. I want to talk to you about Penn State because Penn State, Penn State has an over under win total of nine and a half. It's year one though, new coaching staff, lot of roster churn, right? Well, the coach that's coming in there churned a lot of his old roster in there and the schedule is workable. Eileen, over nine and a half wins for Penn State. What a world in which we live. So the big three on this schedule, USC October 10th at Michigan the next week and then I Got a trip to Washington in early November. If I could just get two and one there. If Matt Campbell's watching tonight, buddy, if you can just go two and one there, I feel pretty good. And because of all the newness, I do need to remind you they don't play any of those teams until week six. Their first five weeks are Marshall at Temple, Buffalo, Wisconsin at Northwestern. Just a garbage. Inexcusably bad out of conference schedule, but you're not allowed to criticize Big Ten out of conference schedules. And so then we get to USC in week six and Southern Cal's got to go to Penn State is basically like flying to Russia for usc and then we're off to the races. They play five of the bottom seven teams in the Big Ten. Odds. There's no Oregon here, there's no Ohio State, there's no Indiana. I think they're going to be able to win 10 games this year. So I lean pretty solidly. Penn State over nine and a half now I've got to balance it out with an under and for that we go to Illinois. I wrestled with this, but Illinois being at seven and a half, it's a slight underlean for me. Eight wins last year, right, Jesse? So they went eight and four last year and nothing's really wrong with them this year. I just think they replace a whole lot and I think there's a little bit too much of 2025 baked into this number. The defense took huge hits and it could be that Brett Bieleman just snaps his fingers and magic happens and they're as good, if not better, in which case, oh Well, I lose 20 bucks. But they did draw Ohio State and Oregon and there is certainly a scenario where Illinois just goes 9 and 3 this year. I'm kind of banking on, with so much newness, they end up on the wrong side of some one possession games. And there's that group of teams like Nebraska, Iowa, even like at Northwestern. It's kind of the perfect time for them to play Duke. But I kind of just wonder about a lot of these games, like at Michigan State, even Pat Fitzgerald, Year one magic. I kind of think there was some one possession games in there. Maybe they end up on the wrong side of them, but I don't know. I've not made a good career of going against Brett Bielema. So I wouldn't, you know, in retrospect, ignore the last minute and a half of the show. I want it to be on record, but ignore the last minute and a half. Now this next minute and a Half I feel pretty good about. And if we know one thing about me when it comes to over under season win totals, it's pay attention when I talk about Nebraska. Two years ago I took Nebraska over, they missed by half a game. Last year I took Nebraska over, they missed by half a game. I am now fearlessly and boldly and proactively taking Nebraska over six and a half wins. And let me tell you why. Matt Rule year four, that's why. Yes, forget Matt Rule year three. It's Matt Rule year four. They missed it by a half game the last two years. They will be upgraded on offense. Mark my words. They will be. They will not be in the 60s and the 80s in passing and rushing offense respectively. This year they did low key, excellent work in the portal even though they did not target Anthony Calandria at quarterback. He will just work out for them because that's how college football happens. It will work out for them. Now here's the problem. Look at the schedule. Hot starts have not been a problem for Nebraska. Garbage finishes have. So they play Ohio and then Bowling Green and then North Dakota and then Michigan State and then Maryland. I'm counting on five and oh at that point. Now here's the downside. You get a little overconfident because if they're five and oh and you're thinking, man, I just need two more wins. Okay, well then Indiana comes to town and then they go to Oregon and then a vastly improved Washington team comes to town and then comes the two week stretch. You got to go on the road for both of them. But there's a two week stretch and that's your, that's your moment because all we got, we just got to win either at Illinois or at Rutgers. And I can tell there's a wobbly tire and there's a little bit of steam coming from under the hood, but it's just Illinois and Rutgers. We just got to win one of them. Boom, boom. You're minus two turnovers in each game. You lose both of them. Ohio State comes and splatters you and. And then you're on the road in Iowa City the last week of the season trying to get yourself to seven and five. I don't want that, but I could see it. So how about we just take care of Washington when they come to Lincoln, Nebraska? Washington has no business winning in Lincoln, Nebraska. Come on now. So I think we can get seven wins. Dare I say we can get eight? Win no. 7. Seven will do. Seven will do. A lot of hands went up justifiably so in the control room. Seven will do. Lastly, I'm going to take another over in the Big Ten. That's Wisconsin. Wisconsin's over underwind total is six and a half. I am a hard over lean on Wisconsin this year. There's no Ohio State on the schedule, nor is there an Oregon on the schedule, nor is there an Indiana on the schedule, nor is there a Michigan on this schedule. Who did they play in the Big Ten? Good question. Six of the bottom seven teams in the odds. That's who they play in conference play. Now they do have Notre Dame out of conference, but we ran the numbers. They could lose to Notre Dame and Penn State and USC and Iowa and they can afford two more losses. And you add in all that with the fact that Luke Fickle is still a good football coach even if he made some wrong moves at the outset and everything's on the line up there. This is a slam dunk, must win season. It is a prove it moment for Luke Fickle and I'm just going to trust him. Backed into a corner. We all know how a Badger acts backed into a corner. Luke Fickle is no different. They're one in the same at this point. You're telling me that I can't get seven wins this year. It's Wisconsin, seven wins. Yeah, I can get it. So I'll take over on Wisconsin as well. Very scary times outside right now. We had a 51 mile per hour wind gust at BNA. That's Nashville's airport for the uninformed earlier which brought us to this next question. Just taking a brief detour. College football will resume in a second. Oscar said, when will you go storm chasing again and will you ever go live when you do? Excellent question, Oscar. I may go as recent or as soon as like two hours from now. But yes, yes we will stream. Yes we will livestream. That's all I can say right now. Yes, we will. Did I give enough information? Yes, we will. Yeah. So here is the dilemma. I can't answer that because I myself don't have like a weather YouTube channel. Now when we're with someone and we chase with many very, very esteemed, very, very high profile people in the chase community, they stream. So look, if I was with Brad Arnold tonight, which I'm not because he's already over in Mississippi somewhere, you can just go watch Brad Arnold's stream. But we may be cooking some stuff so we may be working on some things down the road. But yeah, I think we'll have a busy April and May we'll be out there on the roadstorm chasing. It's always fun. We go to as many campi plural of campus as possible in the spring for the speaker series. And then every now and then we have to like if I were scheduled to sit down with Kirby Smart, we're not doing Georgia this week. But if I had to sit down with Kirby Smart and we had him scheduled for like 3pm tomorrow. But then I knew there was going to be a tornado outbreak. We did this with Mike Norvell last year, remember we were going to do Norvell later in the day and then we found out we needed to storm chase later in the day. So we asked Mike can we move it up to the morning. He acquiesced and then we got out of there and we went to Memphis and we storm chased that day. It's the only chase Jesse has ever participated in. It was a total bust. Terrible luck. Not me, Jesse. And so yeah, that's the tightrope we walk this time of year. Very first world problem, but that's the tightrope we walk. Speaking of Florida State, they will briefly be mentioned in the next portion of the show. Calvin from New York City which fan bases are are the most tortured and deserve better than what they've gotten? Well, sorry I had my papers mixed up. Arkansas is the first fan base that came to mind here. Arkansas has been done wrong. Arkansas's fan base has been done wrong. They are passionate. Place is incredible and it's often the northwest corner of the SEC or the northeast corner of the Southwest Conference. They kind of have like an us against the world mentality up there. I love going up there. We go there sometimes to storm chase. We go up there sometimes to visit. We went there for the Broyles Award just a few weeks ago. So I'm in Arkansas fairly regularly. I know a lot of you have never been a don't knock it till you try it, B very underrated airport at xna, not to be confused with bna. And three it's a phenomenal game day environment even when they suck. So when they're good, it's off the charts. They just haven't been good enough. Their last double digit win season, does anyone want to GUESS it was 2011 that was the very end of the Bobby Petrino era. In SEC play the last eight years Arkansas is 1452. I'm going to repeat that for effect. Arkansas in conference play the last eight years, 14 and 52. Most recently they went 2 and 10. There has been a litany of bad here. John L. Smith. The Brett Bielema era in retrospect wasn't so terrible. Chad Morris after that disaster. Sam Pittman. I just think Sam Pittman came along at the exact wrong time for Arkansas, as it turns out. And now it's Ryan Silverfield. Ryan Silverfield probably got the least amount of national attention when, when he was hired there out of any of these guys and ironically may end up being the best fit remains to be seen. But fingers are crossed because those folks have never tapped out, they have never given up. They deserve it. They remind me like Tennessee, Tennessee was bad for a long time. Hypo came along, pulled the program out of the ditch. Now they're winning. Hadn't won a national title or a conference title yet, but they're winning. So I'm really pulling for Arkansas. Next up, Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech fans badly deserve a winner. They're way overdue for it. Their last double digit win season was a decade ago. Their last big bowl win was like the 0809 seasons. And that's still Frank Beamer era back then. And they're coming off a 3, 9 season. That's the worst year they've had since 1992. And here's what we have to do sometimes on the show. And I don't like this part, but I have to acknowledge we got a bunch of high school kids, a lot of college age boys and girls listening to the show and I have to remind myself when we talk about football programs like Virginia Tech that you have no idea what I'm talking about. When I am mentioning Virginia Tech in the national conversation, you have no idea why they're there. You think I'm wasting time talking Virginia Tech on the national landscape and, and I just, I have, it's a bitter pill to swallow, but I have to swallow that bitter pill of realizing, wow, it's been that long since Virginia Tech was really a factor. But I do want to tell you guys, once upon a time they were a factor. When I say they were a factor, I mean as you had the national championship conversation, Virginia Tech was in it. I don't know if it could happen again. That's up to James Franklin, but they were in it. And also on a pretty related note, it became like one of the most feared home field environments to have to go into. For some reason my mind remembers 1000 different Thursday night games for Virginia Tech. I don't know how many Thursday night games they actually played. But there was this era where ESPN really put pressure premier like top rated matchups On Thursday night. Reese Davis, I think, used to do play by play on those games and Virginia Tech was like a staple. And man, that place is incredible. And, you know, I just, I look at James Franklin being hired there and I think about one day, Virginia tech ranked top 10, Miami's come into town, also ranked top 10. And it's a primetime game. Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreet are in the house. And we really get treated, in some cases for the first time. If you're younger, you really get treated to the idea, the experience that is Lane Stadium. When Virginia Tech is nationally in the picture, it's a great time. We deserve it. They sure deserve it. And not too far up the road. Yeah. Had to get my cardinal directions. What about West Virginia? You know, last year, last spring, I was up in Morgantown, sat down with Rich Rod for the Speaker Series. And then afterwards I had a little time before I was going to get out of there. So I just went out into the stadium, did some cardio. Just like a beautiful day. It was 75 degrees and no one was in there but me. And I sat there for a little while because I've never seen a game in Morgantown, I've never seen a game at West Virginia. But because I am of a certain generation, I think about Steve Slayton, I think about Pat White, I think about from 2005 to 2011, them winning nine or more every year. From 02 to 2011, they won eight games or more every year. So again, kind of like I was talking about with Virginia tech, if you're 20 years old right now, it may not seem like it, but there was a period where if you were talking about the national championship picture, that Mountaineer logo was a staple on your TV screen. Anytime you look into those BCS rankings, they're a factor. They were within an eyelash in 2007 of playing in the national title game and they hadn't had a top 25 finish. Listen to what I'm about to tell you. They haven't finished top 25 in any of the poll. The last. The AP poll last seven years. That's not the mind blowing part of this. This is worth a paper, Pop. West Virginia has not appeared in the top 25 in the last seven years. I have to pause for effect. I can't believe that's true. Now, I didn't say finish. They haven't appeared at any point in the top 25 in the last seven years. And really, honestly, what I'm hoping, Jesse, is I'm hoping we got it wrong. I'm hoping someone emails us and says, hey, actually in 2022 and week nine, they were in there briefly. It would make me feel better if we actually screwed that stat up. I don't think we did though. Amazing fans, amazing atmosphere. And when I was there in spring, all I did. I like to think there was a janitor somewhere watching me, wondering what I was doing. All I did was I went and sat on the first row of the bleachers. I sat there for like 20 minutes just imagining what that place used to be like and what it could be like again. No one says it couldn't be that way again. And lastly, team we've talked about already today, but I'll talk about them once more. Nebraska deserves it. Nebraska fans deserve it. We went up there for the Michigan game last year. We did a live show there the night before. This is my first time in Lincoln. It's my first time at a Nebraska game. I so badly want reasons to go back and this is a third time in three mentions of a team that I have to ask how old are you? Because if you're in your 40s or older, you've lived in a time where Nebraska was the premier team in college football. In the mid-90s, they were a powerhouse. But then if you're 22 years old, you again have no idea what anyone's talking about when they talk that way. That could actually mathematically that may be your dad talking to you about what Nebraska used to be like. And like, if you're 47 years old, that fact has really snuck up on you. If you live up in Kearny Nebraska or North Platte Nebraska, you're 45 years old. You have lived through a dominant era, the golden era of Nebraska football. And and your 19 year old son laughs when you talk about it. It's a slap in the face. Their last ten plus win season was 2012, the Will Compton era as some call it up there. The last nine seasons earmuffs for the week stomached their win totals. 4 wins, 4 wins, 5 wins, 3 wins, 3 wins, 4 wins, 5 wins or 7 wins, 7 wins. So in a way, Matt Rule has gotten the job done in relation to what Nebraska football had been no appearance in the College Football playoff rankings since 2016. That means the entire top 25 rankings, not just the top 10. They have not appeared at all in the cfp rankings since 2016. And yet Arkansas, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Nebraska four for four awesome fan bases. They haven't been good in quite a while and we hear regularly from all four of those fan bases on this show in like in our inbox, we hear from them all the time. So I just wait around for lightning to strike. Now here's what could happen. What could happen is this time next year, Jesse, we are talking about Silverfield and James Franklin and Rich Rod and Matt Rule, and they all have just gotten themselves in position to where they're all a contender. But they've surprised everyone in 2026. Maybe we at least go 2 of 4 there, but I'm hoping for 4 of 4.
- [48:57]
Spreaker Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere. People listen. Apple podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show today@spreaker.com spreaker because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it.
- [49:48]
Bradley
They're watching us in Mystown, Pennsylvania Alpharetta, Georgia Fort Lauderdale, Florida thank you guys so much. A lot of house cleaning here. A lot of just warning people or begging people about the upcoming season. Guy, who lives in Moundridge, Kansas hit us and he said which teams need to win it all or win enough to to save their coaches butts. This year it sounds like Guy is asking who's on the clock and this could be one of two things. Like he said, you could need to win to save your job or you could need to win just because if you don't win now, when are you really going to do it? And that latter category is how I look at Texas. Steve Sarkeesian and Texas are on the clock this year because they're all in. They are. Ohio State 2 years ago Buckeyes ended up winning a title when they were all in Texas. Don't know because the season's still ahead of us. Arch Manning plus that portal class. You may have the number one quarterback in the country and tackle in the country and edge player in the country and wide receiver or one of the best receivers in the country a Loaded cornerback room, overhauled the running back room entirely. It's all there. Everything you could possibly want or say that you need as the head coach or the general manager or a staffer or a fan at Texas is there. Schedule's a little tough. Yeah. Yeah. Guess what? All of them have to play U2. So Oklahoma made the playoff last year, so there's no complaining about schedule when you load up like this. Texas has got to get the job done. By get the job done, I mean they have to be in that national championship picture when the national championship happens. So I guess I'm saying they got to make the national title game. I know that's lofty, but when are you ever going to have it put together better than this? So they're on the clock in 2026. I think Oregon is, too. It's kind of the same thing here. There's no job security pressure for Dan Lanning, but it's the same thing. We know you can win a ton of games now. Can you show us that you can win in the playoffs? Can you show us that when you go up against other rosters that look like yours, other coaching staffs that are as highly paid as yours, can you get the job done? Can you be better than them defensive line returns? Dante Moore is back. Decorian Moore and Evan Stewart are back. And all we're looking for here is we're looking for you to continue to do what you've been doing in the regular season. But then when we come up on Ohio State or maybe an Indiana or maybe a Texas, maybe a Georgia, when we come up on them in the playoff and we got to beat two or three of them, can we get that job done? That's what you're on the clock for at this point. Because all the other questions are answered at Oregon now for much different reasons. Florida State's on the clock. Mike Norvell and fsu, FSU got to be on the clock because it's kind of a final straw moment. It's kind of a final stand moment. It feels like for Mike Norvell, 2023 was forever ago. Sometimes you can do a great thing and you live off the equity of that thing for a long time. Man, that equity burned up really quick. That's what 2 and 10 and 5 and 7 will do for you. No more equity. Everyone kind of looks at that and says, that was fun. But it turns out that was the exception and mediocrity or worse than that has been the rule, and I can't push back on it. And also there's this widely held understanding that the only reason that that coaching staff even survived last year was cause the buyout was too big because of the renegotiated deal they had when they won the ACC and got sort of low key, shafted out of a playoff spot a couple of years ago, three years ago. So Florida State, I don't know what the total is like, I don't know what the win total they need is, but certainly got to be above.500, I would think. Now that brings you to the next question of what does 7 and 6 do? Is 7 and 6 okay? You go from 2 and 10 to 5 and 7 to 7 and 6, is that okay? Technically it's progress, it's three year linear progress. But when you have 13 wins four seasons ago. No, no, doesn't really work. Now, USC at usc, this is a different. It's kind of like a hybrid bucket of those two. No one's asking Lincoln Riley to win a national title or bust this year. I at least am not sitting here saying, you better win or you're going to get fired. Maybe somebody is. I'm not. But USC has gone 11, 3, 8, 5, 7, 6 and then 9 and 4 last year under Lincoln Riley. And we've talked about this dynamic a lot on the show of a couple of years ago. He looked around and he said, yeah, okay, I admit it, we got to make some changes. And they did. And not the least of which was defensive changes. And then they got better. They've made strength and conditioning changes there, even if you can't see it yet. They've gotten and are getting a lot better there. And then he got kind of two years. Make sure we reset, make sure we got everything in place. All right, here we go. We're coming off the heels of a number one recruiting class. We made some really good moves in the transfer portal. We've got a third year starter at quarterback. You've got to win this year. You, you've got to make the playoffs this year. That's kind of how Lincoln Riley and USC are on the clock. I don't push back on that and I don't disagree with it. They got Ohio State and Oregon coming to the Coliseum, by the way. I was out there. I mean, I went and did the speaker series with Lincoln last spring and they were putting the finishing touches on a lot of new renovation on campus and construction in downtown Los Angeles. Not cheap. So I got a lot of things going for him there that are all predicated on being reflected in on field results. If you don't have the on field results, no one cares what your facilities look like. No one cares what your recruiting classes are ranked. They're just going to come poach all your guys. So that's what we're waiting on. What about Baylor? It's been a long time since we talked about Baylor. Dave Aranda, because his athletic director ended up getting fired last year, got to keep his job. It looked like Aranda was gone and then all of a sudden the ad's out and hey, we're just not going to make a move on the head coach. What? Everybody had already written Dave out of there. Since he won the Big 12, he's gone 6, 7, 3, 9, 8 and 5, 5 and 7. And I'm a Dave Aranda guy. But I can't just keep backing him if the results look like that. And keep in mind, in the Big 12, we've got this barometer that's been set, this bar that's been set over in Lubbock, Texas, and everyone's looking at that. And you're either playing catch up or you're just watching the top half or the top part of the Big 12 pull away from you. Because for a while in the Big 12, even if you didn't have your act together, it's okay. It's okay because all the conferences just compressed together. Well, it's not that way anymore. And that's a problem if you're not Texas Tech or you don't have your act together. And so I think Baylor is certainly on the clock. I put Wisconsin here as well. Luke Fickle came there. You know, Luke Fickle came to Wisconsin a few years ago and I was sky high on the hire. And as it turns out, he hadn't even come close to matching what Paul Crist was doing. 7 and 6 to 5 and 7 to 4 and 8. It just feels like the wood was a little wet when they tried to light it. Or in football terms, he had the wrong philosophy and wrong guys on his staff. Offensively at the outset, they've tried to fix that. But as Lincoln Riley found out, once the once the car leaves the garage a little bit and gets out on the road, once the plane leaves the Runway, it's hard to repair it unless you land it or you pull the car back into the garage. But that's not fun because no one wants to do that. Well, that's kind of what they've been doing at Wisconsin, but they went and took a ton of transfers. I think over 30 of them. Jesse And a lot of guys went out. And if you just look on paper, it's hard to tell whether they definitively upgraded the caliber of player. But that's paper. Okay. So I have to trust that Luke Fickles evaluations of the guys he's bringing in and the guys that they're letting go or they're watching walk out the door. I have to trust that they came out a net winner in that trade off. But they've got to get it done. Four and eight last year, I would say you need to add. I think they need to go 8 and 4. That's what I would guess. They need to go up there. There were rumors that they were going to be looking for a new head coach. And instead what they did was they kept Luke Fickle and they chose to invest in the recruiting class. Now, I'm a believer in that philosophy. If I believe in the coach and I believe in Luke Fickle. Here's the problem potentially. We said that about Napier at Florida last year. Florida didn't fire Billy. They just invested a ton in talent acquisition and it was more the same the next year. And then they ended up firing a head coach mid season. That that is the way it could go at Wisconsin this year. I'm hoping for their sake it goes the opposite way. We move on. Jesse, you've been checking the radar in there? No, not been checking. Wow. Probably don't even have radar scope on your phone, do you? What a loser. That's unbelievable. That is so pathetic. All right, let's go. Truth TELLER series continues. A lot of truth needed in this sport. A lot of truth needed this time of year. And what we like to do is we like to point our finger. We just blindfold ourselves, point our finger and tonight the finger is pointed long way away from here. Eugene, Oregon the truth about Dan Lanning. Not lies. What's the truth about Dan Lanning? Well, I wrote my truth about Dan Lanning and it's one sentence and here it is right here. The truth about Dan Lanning. He's one of the top head coaches in college football. Sometimes I have to pause and look at the live chat, see what people think about that. Now, knowing our audience and knowing my replies like I think I do, we will get pushback on that sentence and I will ask why are we getting pushed back on that sentence? Because Dan Lanning unequivocally is one of the top head coaches in college football. Now you did notice what I didn't say. I didn't say the top. I didn't even say top three. But I would say one of the top head coaches in college football. Now here's my case for that. And you feel free in the comments to state your opposition. They have won double digit games every season he's been there. They won the Big Ten in 2024. They beat Penn State, Michigan and Ohio State during that year. So they didn't duck the tough teams. They have finished inside the CFP top eight the last three years. Also, just keep in mind, in the midst of this little run, he lost a head coach caliber offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham was so good that Arizona State hired him. And then Lanning takes Will Stein and inserts him. And Will Stein's so good, Kentucky hires him. So now they've promoted from within up there. And so in his four years, he's already cycled twice in offensive coordinator. Their recruiting average has been number four in the country during his time there. They've been a top 10 portal team. I really think they've been like a top five portal team. And here's what the pushback will be. Mark my words. I'm live on air right now, but I know what the comments will be. There will be many people, despite what I just said, they will say, what does Dan Lanning won? You say he's one of the top head coaches in college football. What has he won? Well, I just told you what he's won. But this is of course the group that believes if you haven't won a national title, you haven't won anything. So you either have won a national championship or you got nothing to talk about, nothing to brag about. There's might as well be nothing on the Wikipedia page. Erase the bio entirely. You've done nothing. Well, I want you to give me the knock. The knock is he doesn't finish. I know what the knock is. It's rhetorical. The knock is he doesn't finish. So his great crime, Dan Lanning's great crime at Oregon so far is basically losing to the team that's either going to be in the national title game or win the national title. It was deboer a few years ago at Washington. Then it was Ryan Day at Ohio State. Then last year it was Kurt Signetti in Indiana. So go back and look at what I said or listen to what I said, because what I said, my truth about Dan Lanning, which I think is the truth about him, is he's one of the top head coaches in college football. Every bit of the pushback about him not being able to finish and them not getting the job done in the playoff can be true. And my theory, my truth still be right. Because so far he's done exactly what. Let's just throw a number out. Let's say he's the number six head coach in college football. Number five, number four. Whatever he has done so far, what the number five head coach in college football would do, done really good in talent acquisition, done really good in, in winning a vast majority of his games. And then he runs up on someone that would be ranked above him and he loses to him. That's kind of what the fifth overall head coach in college football would do. So none of that's inaccurate. I see his resume. I've watched all the games. I've been at most of them. Nothing's inaccurate about that. I just always am quick to remind people of one thing, and that is Dan Lanning. You look at his driver's license, says he's 39 years old now. Nick Saban just retired a couple of years ago. Pretty widely regarded as the best to ever do it. Had seven national championships when he retired. Nick Saban was 52 years old when he won his first title. That was at LSU in 2003. Lanning is 13 years younger than that right now. So you're just going to have to forgive me if I don't look at Dan Lanning's lack of national championship notches on his belt and think, well, I mean, that guy sucks. If he hadn't gotten it done in the first half decade of his head coaching career, he's not going to get it done. And the reason, aside from common sense that I don't go down that route, is because I saw people do it with Kirby and I saw people do it with Ryan Day. People with Kirby Smart watched him win a whole bunch of games at Georgia. Ironically, he kept running into Saban in Alabama and they lost and they lost and they lost and then all of a sudden they didn't lose and they won a national title. Then they won another one the next year for good measure. And now no one says Kirby can't win the big one anymore. Then they just turned their attention to Columbus, Ohio, and they talked about Ryan Day being born on third base and he can't really win the big one. He's been gift wrapped, this great situation, but they just can't get it done. And oh, look, they can't even beat Michigan. And then they found a way not to beat Michigan and still win a national title. And then they beat Michigan last year for good measure. Now no one's doubting Ryan Day anymore for the time being. And these people never disappear. They just turn their attention elsewhere. And right now it is Steve Sarkeesian and it's Dan Lanning. And those are the two that are the latest in the can't win the big one club. And eventually they will, and then it'll eventually become someone else. But what did all those guys have in common? They had in common the age old adage that Meemaw taught us from birth. And that is there is a big difference in cannot versus have not. And the fact with Kirby for a long time was not that he could not win it, it's just that he hadn't. Same with Ryan Day, same with Dan Lanning. Right now, Dan Lanning will win a national title at Oregon. Steve Sarkeesian will win a national title at Texas. At least I think they will. And then they will be no different a coach than they are right now. If Lanning wins a national title in 10 months, he will be no different a head coach than he is right now. But there is a certain, I don't know, like, kind of perspective that a certain kind of person has on this sport where they will think Dan Lanning transformed himself because his Wikipedia page has another sentence on it that it didn't used to have. I've never looked at it that way. I would ask that person right now, not in January of 2027. Right now I'm going to have a head coaching draft we're drafting for the next five years results. How far are we going to get in that draft before Dan Lanning comes off the board? I don't think very far. So I think Dan Lanning is one of the best head coaches in college football and probably still has another rung or two on his personal and professional ladder he can climb. There you go. I've got big news. It's actually basketball related. FanDuel actually hit us up and told us two things. The first thing they told us is win totals are out. We already talked about that on the show tonight. The other thing fanduel told us is free money for everyone. You may be thinking to yourself, what's the catch? There kind of isn't one. Well, there may be like a little bit of one catch. So new signups or 10 year veterans, all of you go to FanDuel right now. Log in, click on your little bonus tab and just opt in to the free money they're giving you. Free money. The only catch is you got to bet it on NCAA tournament action. That's it. It's not your money. It's their money. They are putting it in your account and you go bet it. And hey, if I bet with that money and I win the money, guess what, Jesse? It's mine. It's all mine. And I'd like to say that I'm responsible for this, but it's not even my idea. Fanduel hit us up and just told us about it. Look at that gold basketball there. We need to get a football like that. We need to hang it from the ceiling. You know, we've got truss work above us where we can lower stuff from the ceiling. We haven't had that before. So I had some ideas. I gotta float them by you when we're off air.
- [68:15]
FanDuel Announcer
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- [68:59]
Bradley
All right, let's move on. Let's wrap it up. Bad weather is impending. Oh, my nose. It just too. We are doing the Mood Tracker. Sorry, Bradley, it's probably not a good endpoint for you. Here's a good endpoint. The Mood Tracker series continues tonight with lsu. We're taking a deep but brief look at the LSU fan base and what is the mood and what should the mood be down there? So this is going to sound like a play on words, but it's not. It just so happens Lane Kiffin got hired there. It just so happens his first name is Lane. But I would categorize the mood amongst LSU fans as Fast Lane, but more so the ideology of what it's like to be in the fast lane. So you all out there have driven in the left lane before. Some of you have no business over there. In fact, free PSA for our younger viewers who haven't been taught the rules of the road. All the lanes aren't created equal, guys There is a reason why, why that left lane is called the passing lane. Because if you're not passing, if you're not going faster than the flow of traffic, you don't need to be over there. So that concludes the free psa. I know some of you aren't aware of that. That's okay. You don't have to tell people you weren't aware just as long as you learned it tonight. So don't be floating over there and wondering why someone's tailgating you. They're tailgating you because you need to get out of the way. Well, when it comes to LSU football, they're in the fast lane. And Lane just got hired down there. And now he's driving the car, purple and gold car, that's in the fast lane. And to whomst much is given, much is required. This is the fair trade off that has existed since the dawn of time. And from a fan's perspective, from an LSU fan's perspective, understand where the mindset is at right now. Not only are you lsu, which means a lot if you're an LSU fan, that means a lot if you're a college football fan. Not only are you lsu, and not only are you all in financially. I mean, look at these numbers being floated around.40/million on a class whomstood of thunk it. So not only are you all in on hiring a coach, acquiring a roster, just the overall pantheon of LSU in the 2000s, winning a national title with every head coach up until the last one, who you just unceremoniously dumped, who for a new one. Not only do we have all that going for us, Nick Saban's gone. So the thorn that was in your side for a long time, the one that went 13 and 5 against you, he's gone. And so it's a new era in every possible way. And nothing's holding LSU back but lsu. That's how you feel, rightfully so, from Thibodeau to Shreveport and everywhere in between. If you're an LSU fan and you kind of feel affirmed too, because you feel a certain way about lsu. If you're an LSU fan but see outsiders around the south sometimes, they look at that and they look and they laugh at the way LSU fans feel about their program, but the way an LSU fan feels about LSU football is totally validated. When the head coach of arrival within conference who is headed to the College Football Playoff chooses to leave before he can coach in the playoffs because your place is that much more desirable than theirs, in his mind, that validates that there are more people out there who view LSU in the light they view it than LSU fans. That proved there's at least one other person out there and and it happens to be the head coach we want to hire that views us as that much greater than. Fill in the blank. In this case Ole Miss. But LSU fans do not limit the list of greater thans to just Ole Miss. I can assure you the belief there is that when LSU is right, it is without equal in college football. And history suggests that there's a lot of validity to that. But the trade off now is if you're in that passing lane, if you're in the fast lane, if you're Lane Kiffin in this case, there is no getting over. That's the difference in an LSU fan's mentality. And someone behind the car of a 2012 Tacoma on i65 out here right now, he could just get over and he could let the faster cars pass him. You don't get to do that if you're Lane Kiffin. You don't get to do that as the head coach at LSU right now. If they wanted more of that, they would have kept the guy that used to be there. If they wanted a guy to get over and let Bama and Georgia and Texas by, they would have just kept Brian Kelly there. They're telling you they're better than that and you better be better than that. So you better be leading the pack, not watching the pack go by you. And you know what? I don't even have a problem with that. And they obviously don't either. That is our show. We are on the road this week. We've got two big speaker series stops this week. Follow on social. You'll eventually see where we are and we will be back Thursday to do a show. And until then you gotta be heads up. Let's be weather aware tonight. Head on a swivel in the Carolinas tomorrow. I think it could get really bad over there. Pretty atypical for that kind of setup to be over there. So let's eyes open, ears open and otherwise. Please subscribe to the channel. We're out of here. For director Bradley producer Jesse I'm Josh Pate. Take care. Have a great start to your week and God bless.
- [74:45]
FanDuel Announcer
Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. for first online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non withdrawable bonus bets which expire seven days after receipt restrictions apply. See terms@sportsbook.fanduel.com Gambling problem Call 1-800-Gambler or visit fanduel.com rg call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chatincut or visit MDG. In Maryland, Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text Hopeny In New York,
- [75:31]
Sherwin Williams Announcer
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- [75:59]
Josh Pate
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [76:02]
Bradley
Guaranteed Human.